Abstract: An aircraft for carrying passengers and/or cargo has first, second and third cabins arranged in a split level floor configuration within a fuselage. The cabin floors are connected by stairs, elevators or escalators. Two of the cabins are stacked above a reduced height lower hold which acts as an energy absorbing crush zone in the event of a crash.
Abstract: A fixed-wing VTOL aircraft features a forward-swept wing configuration coupled with a tripod arrangement of the engines (two forward, one rear), a forward-swept empennage or tail assembly, and a forward canard. The engines and wings/empennage are located relative to each other such that the engine outlet nozzles, which pivot downwardly to provide lift-off thrust, are minimally covered by the wings/empennage, if at all. The wings and empennage may include lifting fans to supplement lift and provide pitch and/or roll control.
Abstract: The present invention is a laminar supersonic transport aircraft having a reverse delta wing located between a forward section and a distal end of the aircraft, a set of jet engines superposed on another set of jet engines, a stabilizing vertical tail located near the distal end of the aircraft, a stabilizing canard surface located near the forward section of said aircraft. Also, a laminar flow control device can be incorporated within the wing. The reverse delta aerodynamic wing has a basic reverse delta wing portion bounded by a leading edge and by a pair of trailing edges extending from respective ends of the leading edge toward a trailing apex point and respective span-wise wing extensions in a natural laminar boundary layer wing region extending chordwise from the leading edge by a fraction of the chordlength of the wing and extending span-wise from opposing sides of said wing.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 21, 1997
Date of Patent:
December 1, 1998
Assignee:
Northrop Grumman Coporation
Inventors:
Heinz Adolf Gerhardt, James Franklin Kerswell, Richard Thomas Priestley, Berry Thomas Gibson
Abstract: The spacecraft comprises a fuselage (1), a wing (2), a power unit incorporating two liquid-propellant launching rocket engines (3), two liquid-propellant boost rocket engines (4), six transverse-thrust rocket engines (5) located in the spacecraft fuselage (1) on a rotatable ring (6), solid-propellant emergency deceleration rocket engines (7), and solid-propellant additional boosting rocket engines (8), a payload compartment (9), a crew compartment (10), a tail unit with two vertical fin struts (11) a bottom tailplane (12), and a top tailplane (13). The fuselage (1) is provided with a movable center conical body (14). The spacecraft landing gear has a swivelling tail wheel (21). The crew compartment (10) is interposed between the fin struts (11) under the top tailplane (13). The spacecraft is provided with an orbital maneuvering system whose final control elements are in fact low-thrust rocket engines (22) and (23), and gyrodynes.